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The color RED has a wide variety of meanings, beginning with the fact that it is the color of blood, as well as symbolic of strength, passion and courage. RED can also be the color of the heart and of love.

I have read that red is the third color a new baby can see, coming after white and black. Roman brides wore a red shawl to symbolize fidelity and love. And in Chinese philosophy, red is associated with fire. It's a color that certainly draws attention, and it is fun to wear in clothing, accessories and jewelry.

GARNETS are the birthstone for January and July is red rubies, although that does not stop those of us with other birth months from enjoying them too. Shades of beautiful red are just one color in which garnets come, but it is the best known. The Bohemian garnet was only found in Bohemia and was valued for it’s color, beauty and supposed health giving and uplifting effects. Garnet jewelry is as varied in style as garnets themselves and they range from multi-faceted reflectors of rich deep reds to cabochons, juicy as pomegranate seeds. They also come in almost all colors except blue.

Garnets were mounted in both low and higher karat yellow gold, gold plate and mixed metal settings and more recently in sterling. The history of garnet jewelry goes back hundreds of years and it’s longevity is no surprise when you see how glorious they are. Bohemian garnet jewelry is known for it’s encrusted close-set stones, which are often rose cut and sometimes combined with larger cabochons and faceted stones.

An article in the "Journal of the Society of the Arts" August 25, 1892, states that at that time there were over 3000 cutters working in 500 shops in the Bohemian garnet industry. With the miners and other workers there were about 10,000 persons making a living in the industry, and they certainly made a lot of wonderful jewelry.

After World War I, Bohemia became Czechoslovakia.

TO BUY...

Jewelry with RED in it is FOR SALE HERE.

GARNET JEWELRY for sale is HERE.

More wonderful JEWELRY is available to purchase HERE.

GALLERY

To feast your eyes on the the RED jewelry we've had in the past, please look at our Gallery HERE.

And to see more examples of GARNET jewelry in our gallery, click HERE.

When we got in a wonderful collection of Victorian turquoise and gold rings I began to do some extra research. According to Wikipedia, the word "turquoise" came about when the earliest of these lovely blue stones was brought from Turkey into Europe around the 16th century. Since then turquoise has been a lovely and popular stone to use in jewelry

Having lived here in New Mexico for so long, I was excited when a dealer in our mall brought an interesting book to my attention. It is Tiffany Blue by Patricia McGraw. It tells the story of a Victorian era turquoise mine outside my city of Albuquerque, just north in a very small town called "Cerrillos", and it speaks of a time between 1892-1933 when the Tiffany Company bought stones from that mine with which to create wonderful jewelry.

Author Patricia McGraw's great grand-father, James Patrick McGraw, was the manager and supervisor of the AMC, or American Turquoise Company, between Cerrillos and Santa Fe. There they mined gem quality turquoise, much of which was shipped back to the Tiffany Company in New York City. There, Tiffany advertised and popularized the wonderful qualities of the beautiful sky blue turquoise with no matrix. Not all the turquoise mined there was of that type, but that type was all in which Tiffany seemed to have had an interest.

Turquoise was also was mined in many other US areas and countries with differences in the fineness, matrix and color in each. Cerrillos turquoise looks a lot like Persian turquoise which has no matrix and is a particularly lovely shade of blue. Turquoise was a popular jewelry stone throughout the late Victorian era, and is was sometimes used to symbolize remembrance in the form of the forget-me-not flower.

According to the web site Durango Silver Company, "Cerrillos turquoise is a very hard stone and so takes a brilliant polish. In addition to producing a distinctive stone, the Cerrillos mine is the oldest mine of any kind in North America". What a joy to share this wonderful collection of antique rings!

Victorian turquoise jewelry to buy can be found HERE.

For what's new on Morning Glory on any day, please click HERE.

GALLERY
See our gallery of wonderful Victorian turquoise jewelry look HERE.

REFERENCE INFORMATION
Jewelry Marks & Dates
Jewelry References
Jewelry Values, what it's worth and how to sell it
Determining Jewelry Quality
Jewelry Definitions
Jewelry Findings